The subject matter herein relates generally to electrical connectors with terminal position assurance devices.
Some electrical connectors are designed for multi-pin connections. The electrical connectors may be mated to mating connectors terminated to wires or mounted on circuit boards. Such multi-pin connectors are generally assembled by coupling terminals to wires, then loading the terminals into a cavity in a connector housing. Generally, there is a retention feature on the terminal and/or in the cavity that is engaged once a terminal reaches a designated position within the length of the cavity in order to prevent the terminal from backing out of the cavity unintentionally during use of the connector. Sometimes the retention feature fails to prevent the terminal from exiting the cavity, such as if the retention feature is dysfunctional or the terminal was not inserted far enough into the cavity to properly engage the retention feature. If a terminal is not properly retained within a cavity, when the electrical connector is mated to a mating connector, a corresponding mating contact may not connect properly to the subject terminal. For example, the incoming mating contact may drive the terminal back out of the housing, preventing a proper electrical connection between the terminal and the mating contact. Each housing may hold up to twenty or more terminals, and even a single missed electrical connection may compromise the functionality of the entire connector system and the devices they connect.
Electrical connectors in the art may attempt to prevent terminals from unintentional movement in the cavities by adding a restraining device. For example, a device may be added to a rear of the housing that is configured to act as a barrier and/or push any terminals that are not at the designated position further into the respective cavities towards the designated position. However, such devices have various problems. For example, the terminals may be terminated to insulated wires that extend from the rear of the housing and make it difficult to access the terminals (e.g., to push and/or block rearward movement of the terminals), especially when the terminals are grouped into multiple columns and/or rows. A restraining device may not be able to be installed between adjacent rows of terminals due to crowding of the insulated wires. Furthermore, even if a restraining device is installed, it might not be able to engage any features of the terminal for various reasons. For example, the insulated wire may have a larger diameter than some parts of the terminal such that when the device navigates beyond the wire, it might slip past a certain part of the terminal that it was intended to engaged. In addition, different terminal types (e.g., pin or socket), sizes, and orientations provide varying features that a restraining device may engage in order to push and/or retain the terminal in the cavity. For example, the same device may effectively engage a roof of a receptacle terminal, but slip past and fail to engage a pin terminal or even the same receptacle terminal oriented upside down.
A need remains for an electrical connector that assures complete installation of terminals into the cavities of a connector housing to allow a successful electrical connection with a mating connector.